NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 1648709" data-attributes="member: 18280">Tenth SessionThe next day, the sky began to cloud up, threatening more rain.  Barrock continued to feel ill, and Locke felt little better, but the group decided to press on anyway.After following the ancient road for a couple of hours, the Lakashi left the roadway, turning onto a narrow pathway that zigzagged up the rocky hills to the south.  The trees along the strenuous climb were less numerous.  Tiny toads hopped out of their way along the path, and chipmunks were plentiful.  As the path neared the summit of the hills, it turned into a narrow cut, a gap that began to move steadily down toward the valley land below.Catori, the Lakashi leader, turned toward the adventurers.  “It is just ahead here that we were attacked by spiders,” she said.  “They killed Olathe and Motega, but not before they were able to strike back.  Whether one of the spiders survived, or two, I cannot say.”“Will any of you come with us?” Desu asked. “We are not warriors.” Catori looked away.  “Go forward, be bold, and clear the way.  Surely the spirits will grant you some reward for your bravery and sacrifice.”Locke and Barrock were still feeling ill, so Desu and Manveru nervously led the way.  Eden and Nift stayed far behind, with Nift playing his guitar to inspire courage.  There was some tall grass, and a few stunted trees growing in the pass.  Manveru searched the area, and found a curled-up, grayish-black husk – the dried remains of a spider the Lakashi had killed.  It had been a hairy spider, not unlike a wolf spider, about three feet in diameter.“Not warriors indeed!” Desu grinned.  “I had thought the spiders would be the size of a horse at least!”They could find no sign of the spider’s Lakashi victims, Olathe or Motega.  They moved forward more boldly into the pass.  Two spiders still lurked there, hidden and waiting for a chance to strike.  The adventurers where ready, though, and made short work of the vermin.Not far from where the spiders attacked them, Desu saw a hole cut into the cliff on the right-hand side.  The hole was only about three feet high by three feet across, about twenty feet up the slope, where rock gave way to soil.  Spidersilk and old cobwebs obscured his view of the hole, but it was clearly too even to be natural.Desu pointed it out to his companions.  “That must be where they laired,” he said.  “Let us hope there are no more.”They returned to the Lakashi pilgrims.  After briefly explaining what had happened, the entire group moved forward through the pass.  Beyond the spider cliffs, the pass descended into a narrow valley, perhaps ten miles wide and thrice as long, ranged all about with hills and cliffs.  The valley floor seemed heavily forested, save where one hill rose, perhaps fifteen miles inward.  That hill was barren save for a single longstone, which stood amid a jumble of rock.  The longstone seemed strangely disquieting.Eden caught a flash, like sunlight on metal, on one of the hills on the far side of the valley, but it was too far away and gone too quickly to determine exactly what it was.  Still, it seemed that there might be old stoneworks there, standing against the sky.As they moved down into the valley, there was a sudden hissing noise.  They stopped.  Ahead, an adder twice as long as a man was coiled around a tree, perhaps twenty feet ahead.Catori raised one hand, as though in greeting of the huge snake.  The adventurers stepped back warily, though none of the Lakashi women seemed alarmed, save Eden the Sorceress.The adder let out another long hiss, then spoke in the Serpent Tongue:  “Speak, Sister,” it hissed, “or die.”Manveru pricked up his ears, for he understood the language of snakes.“I am Catori of the Adder Folk,” the Lakashi leader hissed back.  “These women are with me, pilgrims to the Serpent Stone.  These men have aided us, but they are not of our kind.”“No outsiders may know the way to this valley and live,” the snake hissed.“I understand.  When we have passed on, you may do with them as you like.  Only recall that they have aided us, and be gentle with their deaths.  May they fill your belly, and the belly of your children.”“It is so,” hissed the serpent.  “You may pass.”Catori turned to the adventurers, and spoke in the common tongue of the Lakelands.  “Beyond this place, only the faithful may enter.  I have spoken with the Guardian.  Remain here while we go, and you will be rewarded.”Manveru bit his lip.  Better to let his enemies divide themselves, and fight them one at a time.  Still, it chaffed him to have aided these women that, all along, had plotted his ruin.  He quietly loosened his scimitar in its sheath.The Lakashi pilgrims descended into the valley.  The Guardian of the Valley, coiled around its tree, stared unblinking at the adventurers.  “Get ready,” Manveru said, quietly but tersely to his comrades.  He stepped forward and addressed the Guardian.“I, too, speak the Serpent Tongue,” he said.“It grieves me, then, that you must die.”  The huge adder uncoiled itself from the tree.  It hissed and writhed on the ground as it came forward, and the grasses began to animate, seeking to hold the adventurers fast.  Manveru leapt forward with his scimitar, cutting the evil serpent, and breaking its connection to the magical energies it was gathering.  The adventurers drew their weapons, and melee was joined.Locke and Barrock were still weak, poisoned or ill, and could do little to aid their comrades.  Desu and Manveru leapt into the fray, while Eden stepped back and conjured a magical pool of greasy slime in an effort to contain the serpent.  The serpent lashed out, again and again, with venom-dripping fangs.  It was clear, though, that the group was getting the better of their adversary.  Whatever minor healing powers it could draw upon were not enough.  Soon, the Guardian of the Valley lay dead.  The adventurers stood, wounded and poisoned, victorious but unwell.“We need to rest before pursuing those witches,” Desu said.  “We need to recover, and let this venom run its course.  We are in no shape for more battle today.”The rest of the group gave mute agreement.  They began to make camp, thinking about the women they had befriended and aided, and how they had been betrayed.  Had Manveru not spoken the language of snakes, they might all have been ensnared and slain.  There would have to be revenge.Revenge, however, would have to be delayed.  Desu lay on the floor of the pass, close to the fire they had built.  He was growing chill, but the venom was a constant fire burning within his muscles.  The Lakashi were matriarchal.  Desu had been raised to respect the words and advice of women.  How could he have denied these their simple request for aid?Yes, he thought, there would have to be vengeance.  Not only for himself, but for the honor of the tribal mothers Catori’s actions had betrayed.* * * * *Barrock and Locke were still ill in the morning, but the rest of the group felt a little better.  They broke camp and headed down the trail.The valley was moist, and the growth was dense, both in terms of the trees themselves and the undergrowth choking the area between their trunks.  It was very difficult to see any distance into the forest.  The air seemed thick and cloying.  The trees seemed to crowd the path, and at times it seemed as though hostile eyes were peering down from the trees upon the group as they passed beneath them.The oppression of the valley seemingly did little to affect Desu’s spirits.  The rest of the group, though, was becoming increasingly, and to varying degrees, nervous.  After following the path for several hours, they came across a side track.“The Serpent Stone is straight ahead,” Manveru said.  “It is the direction they would have gone.”The continued onward.  Some little time later, a man-sized constrictor snake dropped from a low branch onto Nift, who was walking last in line.  They came quickly to the small gnome’s aid, but by the time they could stop his assailant, Nift was already unconscious from his wounds.“We need to leave this valley,” Desu said.  “Rest again.”  He looked down.  “We may be forced to let these Adder Folk go.”“We’ll rest another day,” said Manveru.  “But we’re not letting them go.”* * * * *That night, as they camped in the pass once more, they cooked the constrictor snake that had attacked Nift.Manveru noticed a pair of eyes, reflected yellow-green from the fire, staring at them from the darkness, low to the ground.  Standing, and approaching the eyes, he saw a red fox crouched near the pass wall.  The creature did not seem afraid of him, so Manveru tried the Lupine Tongue, which he also spoke, and which was understood by most intelligent canines.“What do you want?” he asked.The fox licked its lips.  “Just a bite of your dinner,” he answered in the Vulpine dialect of the same language – a more cultured, and less aggressive, form of the Canine Tongue.“We are happy to share,” Manveru said, and threw the fox a goodly portion.  The fox sat beyond their firelight, eating daintily and seemingly contented to listen in on their speech.  In the morning, it was gone.</blockquote>

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